In an increasingly networked world, more and more traffic, such as data, voice, and video traffic, is transmitted over public and proprietary networks. Wireless networks, in particular, are popular as networks through which subscribers obtain both voice services (e.g., telephone calls) and data services (e.g., email and web surfing). Wireless networks, such as cellular wireless networks, can provide network coverage over large geographic areas (e.g., nationwide coverage). Smartphones may commonly be used to access the wireless networks.
Smartphones, in addition to including a radio interface designed to interact with a wireless network, such as a cellular wireless network, may include other interfaces such as pluggable interfaces (e.g., a universal serial bus (USB) interface) or additional radio interfaces, such as radio interfaces designed to transmit data over short distances (e.g., a Bluetooth® interface). The additional interfaces of a smartphone may be used to connect the smartphone to external devices, such as external input or sensing devices.
One class of external devices may include snappable and wearable devices. A snappable device may include a device that is designed to be directly attached to a smartphone, such as by “snapping” the device into a USB interface of the smartphone. Similarly, a wearable device may be one that is designed to be worn by a user of the smartphone, such as an article of clothing or jewelry, and that may communicate with the smartphone using a short range radio interface (e.g., a Bluetooth® interface). Wearable and snappable devices will be generically referred to herein as “X'able” devices.
X'able devices may include sensors that measure information relating to the user of the smartphone or to an environment associated with the user of the smartphone. The smartphones may provide an application designed to communicate with the x'able device and provide a graphical interface for presenting sensed information and/or controlling the x'able device.